PLD changes; thoughts?

[Vidu]

Yeah, this must be some kind of sick joke - I wasnt looking forward to changes in general, but this is worse than I expected... I lost all sense of flow from my rotation, its just lackluster now. I really liked the clear melee-casting-phase seperation, it flowed really, really nicely... I can live without the dots but please... give my old rotation back ;_;

They did a really good job in Shadowbringers and with 6.0 to perfect it - and now they've basically taken a sledgehammer to it for no good reason.

Not that I'd expect it, but I'm dreaming off finding an article on the lodestone tomorrow title "haha, got you good, hotfix to revert the changes is next week!"

Some of the QoL might have been nice. hadnt they taken so much QoL away with the same breath...

[Gserpent]

Honestly, they just need to decide what to do with Atonement. The absolute blandest and simplest solution would just to turn it into Raiden Thrust - consume Divine Might, Atonement replaces Fast Blade. Or just have Atonement replace Riot Blade, since it's the same goddamn animation to begin with (forward over-arm thrust) and retune potency of the combo accordingly. I loved the "Atonement becomes Apex Arrow" concept I saw here earlier.

I would not ordinarily call this team stupid, lazy, or incompetent - not *seriously*, anyway - but the fact that they left in the whole "have to occasionally drop Atonements or hardcast Holy Spirits" thing and then Bulwark will suffer from the problem they *just fixed* in Sheltron makes for some pretty strong evidence for one of those three being accurate.

Wasn't the point to rework the rotation and flow so that it fits modern design better? Yoshida quite literally said something to that effect in the Famitsu interview just before the second PLL - late enough that changes were likely set in stone at that time and the only thing left was QA testing and maybe a little bit of fine-tuning potency (remember that there's a significant lead time on getting patches and the like approved through Sony.) Was Yoshida just genuinely not aware of how slapdash the rework was?

Too bad they'd never allow such questions into a Q&A.

[ForsakenRoe]

Honestly, they just need to decide what to do with Atonement. The absolute blandest and simplest solution would just to turn it into Raiden Thrust - consume Divine Might, Atonement replaces Fast Blade. Or just have Atonement replace Riot Blade, since it's the same goddamn animation to begin with (forward over-arm thrust) and retune potency of the combo accordingly. I loved the "Atonement becomes Apex Arrow" concept I saw here earlier.

I would not ordinarily call this team stupid, lazy, or incompetent - not *seriously*, anyway - but the fact that they left in the whole "have to occasionally drop Atonements or hardcast Holy Spirits" thing and then Bulwark will suffer from the problem they *just fixed* in Sheltron makes for some pretty strong evidence for one of those three being accurate.

Wasn't the point to rework the rotation and flow so that it fits modern design better? Yoshida quite literally said something to that effect in the Famitsu interview just before the second PLL - late enough that changes were likely set in stone at that time and the only thing left was QA testing and maybe a little bit of fine-tuning potency (remember that there's a significant lead time on getting patches and the like approved through Sony.) Was Yoshida just genuinely not aware of how slapdash the rework was?

Too bad they'd never allow such questions into a Q&A.

That person who came up with Apex Atonement must be some kind of genius /s

I think Bulwark is actually okay with the 'can't use on DOTs' thing, I look at it as similar to Dark Mind and Camo (though Camo has the 10% too), if there's autoattacks, then a DOTBuster coming, I'll use Bulwark for the Autos, and Rampart for the TB, rather than 'nothing' for the autos, then Rampart for the TB. Sure it could be better, but the fact PLD is now up to parity with other tanks in terms of CDs is good IMO. And it's not like the other tanks have their 'tertiary CDs' work 100% of the time. Thrill doesn't help make DOTs tick for less. Dark Mind doesn't help with DOTs in some cases (Toxic Crunch is Phys as far as I'm aware, so it wouldn't mitigate the DOT from that, only from Venomous Mass). Wouldn't say no to a baseline 5% Mit on it, but if anything, my concern is more the duration. 10s? Really? DM's 10s on a 60s CD and Camo's 20s on a 90. Weird.

[Oextra]

Personally my only complaints are that cover is still pretty useless, and FoF should have stayed at 25s or they should've changed atonement's recast time to an unchangeable 2s, or at least 0.3s less than normal gcd recast. I really wish they threw 20-30% mit on Cover or something that would give players a reason to use it more often. The reduction to FoF is an annoyance because it now has the same problem as No Mercy, in that is not long enough for the burst, not comfortably anyways. Sure 2.4ish recast, you can squeeze all 3 atonements and holy spirit at the end, but it's super tight.

If the left FoF at 25s, this wouldn't be an issue. But as I think about it, if they instead just made atonement have a 2s recast, not only could you comfortably fit all of them in FoF, but you also wouldn't have to drop one after the burst window to make sure the rotation lines up.

[Curisu]

The PLD team on the Balance discord upgraded the rotation they think would be best:

<ld:803036604449030215> __**New rotation**__

**What's different?**
No dropping Atonements, no hardcast Holy Spirits, just follow a priority system during filler

**Why?**
Easier to learn (no need to memorize long loops), slightly higher rDPS, slightly lower aDPS. Overall it's about the same or slightly better, as well as just easier.

**Will update the Opener/Rotation section within a few hours**

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...9574/image.png


Soo, Castadin is not the best anymore.
So you have the option 60sec atonement drop rotation.
120sec HS casting rotation.
Or this new one, just press everything and keep buff's on time, braindead rotation.

No significant differences (unless high tier optimization) and all three viable with not much difference.

[Ayche]

I do want a second combo (back).
Goring blade can stay as it is, just make give me Savage Blade back and let it lead into a new combo finisher.
For the sake of physical attack variety.

[Sparkthor]

I do want a second combo (back).
Goring blade can stay as it is, just make give me Savage Blade back and let it lead into a new combo finisher.
For the sake of physical attack variety.

This cannot append until the next extension because of animations needed to be developed (Paladin only got one old physical attack animation which is savage blade (2nd old aggro combo)).
Also add back a new combo imply this should be used. This would imply somes changes for Atonement. Maybe for 7.0 but not before.

[Ayche]

This cannot append until the next extension because of animations needed to be developed (Paladin only got one old physical attack animation which is savage blade (2nd old aggro combo)).
Also add back a new combo imply this should be used. This would imply somes changes for Atonement. Maybe for 7.0 but not before.

Sure, I am not in a hurry, the job is good enough for now.
Maybe two combos that generate different resources each. Let one create divine might and the other can create sword oaths.

[Rithy255]

This cannot append until the next extension because of animations needed to be developed (Paladin only got one old physical attack animation which is savage blade (2nd old aggro combo)).
Also add back a new combo imply this should be used. This would imply somes changes for Atonement. Maybe for 7.0 but not before.

Kind of like they already make animations mid expansion for the new content in the patch, almost like they gave Divine veil a updated animation to fit the changes... Not saying they "need" to make new animations for every ability but a lot of PLD's look bad and outdated to me. To name a them: Royal authority, Goring Blade, Intervention. I think it's clear they could likely make a few in the next few upcoming major patches.

[ForsakenRoe]

This cannot append until the next extension because of animations needed to be developed (Paladin only got one old physical attack animation which is savage blade (2nd old aggro combo)).
Also add back a new combo imply this should be used. This would imply somes changes for Atonement. Maybe for 7.0 but not before.

has it really been so long that shield swipe is forgotten

ShieldSwipe - Savage Blade - ShieldBash could look cool, and has room for 'upgrade SavageBlade into Atonement at 76'. Or put it on the end as a 4th GCD, to make it a 10s long combo, which matches Fast, Riot, RA, HS. Idk what a second combo would do now though. 'MP generator(this) and MP spender (RA>HS) combos is the only thing that comes to mind.